Refugees

Being a child of immigrant refugees, I am acutely concerned with the issues around immigration reform in the US and the EU. Being an immigrant myself, having moved from the US to Ireland, I have a degree of understanding of what it takes to pick up and leave, though not under duress. Trump's rhetoric and rants are particularly distressing and divisive. But someone posted this poem by Brian Bilston called Refugees. It hit on something I've always said. There's no truth, only a point of view.

Read the poem and think about refugees. Not colonists like the British who devastated the Native American population or the conquistadors who decimated the Maya and Inca, or the European missionaries and fortune hunters who enslaved Africans. Think about all those who fled oppression to give their children a chance to survive and thrive. They didn't choose to leave like I did. They had to leave. I do not condone illegal immigration and all those who simply overstay their visas and break the laws of the countries they adopt. I do support the belief that anyone can be an American. I am a citizen of Ireland, but I can never be Irish; yet I will always remain American.